


The Late Night Double Feature Picture Show

by Owenjones



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, BDSM, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Flashbacks, Gray-Asexuality, Impact Play, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Multi, No Sex, One Shot, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Rocky Horror Picture Show References, Sexual Fantasy, Sub Crowley (Good Omens), Switch Aziraphale (Good Omens), The Velvet Underground - Freeform, getting sacked
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:27:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22916212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owenjones/pseuds/Owenjones
Summary: After chapter 12 of Getting Sacked, Crowley goes home and intends to get some late-night research done on certain, ahem, work-related activities. Along the way, he has a fantasy about Fell’s history, which he tries to reconcile with his own dodgy past. It was a night he wasn’t going to forget for a very long time.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/OC, Crowley/OC
Comments: 14
Kudos: 17





	The Late Night Double Feature Picture Show

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Restricted Work] by [vgersix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vgersix/pseuds/vgersix). Log in to view. 



> If you haven’t read vgersix’s wonderful story, check it out! It's one of my absolute favorite fics. I'm a bit nervous about posting this tbh, but If it's even half as good as the fic it's inspired by then I'll be happy

Crowley hissed when he sat down at his desk at home late that evening. The painkillers hadn’t quite kicked in yet.

This _thing_ with Fell had been moving at such a whirlwind pace, he decided to set some time aside to figure out what exactly this _thing_ was. Fell had given him so much trust, the least he could do was not be so ignorant about all this stuff. 

He opened up his laptop, then hesitated with his hands hovering above the keyboard while he formulated a way to ask Google about each and every one of his kinky inquiries. His internet search history that evening grew to be as spotted as the bruises left from earlier that day. 

He started off, feeling like a teenager, with a quiz. “Am I kinky?” Simple enough, really.

He quit out of the page when he realized it didn’t allow him to skip questions he was unsure of, and moved onto one with the compelling title, “tell us your favorite animal and we’ll tell you your kink.”

Now, maybe you’d say something like that is not a valid quiz, that the results are meaningless drivel, and that it shouldn’t be used for anything more than a way to waste five minutes. And maybe you’d be right. But, Crowley figured that companies were collecting so much data these days, one of them might be onto something with this. 

He scrolled through the list, looking for the option to say he wasn’t big on animals. That wasn’t a choice, so he went with the one that was closest to his favorite: snakes. 

The site spat back his results, “You like being tied up.” He scoffed at the simple description, “Oh, fuck off! Stupid quiz!” He didn’t even like boa constrictors, which was the snake pictured. Crowley returned to Google, rather unhappy with his search so far, and began to type out more specific questions.

He let himself get easily distracted, though, when he stumbled across a song he hadn’t heard in ages -- Venus In Furs by The Velvet Underground. When he was younger, he had a semi-ironic fascination with the song, which he insisted for years didn’t mean anything about what he actually liked in bed. 

Anathema teased him about it all the way through uni. _The lady doth protest too much, methinks,_ was what she used to say. 

She came close to giving up on the joke until the two of them ventured into a sex shop one day, on the hunt for costumes to wear to a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. They were adult enough to be allowed in the shop, but not adult enough to stop from giggling and turning red upon seeing shelves full of sex toys. The shop had everything, ranging from sensible to absolutely absurd, and a good amount of the fetish gear they were looking for. 

Crowley had been examining the size of a garter belt, wishing that he had taken his own measurements before they stopped by the shop, when out of the blue, Anathema said, “Strike, dear mistress.” 

He spun around and found the short woman brandishing a whip. After they nearly doubled over laughing, she threatened to buy it based on the expression she claimed flew across his face. And the teasing intensified for another few months. 

Crowley had denied it, of course. Denied it about a million times. He cringed as he remembered specifically making fun of the idea that anyone could get off on pain -- pretending to stub his toe and then putting on a performance rivaling that bit from When Harry Met Sally. 

Christ, what would his nineteen-year-old self say to him now? 

He put Venus In Furs on, for old times sake. He tapped along with the steady beat as he clicked through a shady BDSM website.

_“I am tired, I am weary. I could sleep for a thousand years.”_

“Me too, Lou. Me too,” Crowley mumbled, dodging scammy pop-up ads that appeared every few seconds. 

_“Kiss the boot of shiny, shiny leather. Shiny leather in the dark.”_

Something about the song didn’t quite create the same intrigue as it once did. Same as all the websites he had come across, it conjured up images of a seedy sex dungeon. Totally off-putting now he associated kink with the warm c-suite office. He hadn’t been flogged with a whip, nor had he seen Fell don any kind of leather, whether shiny or matte. The soft blankets and aftercare were totally absent from the lyrics too, and the song was about a dominant woman who seemed far from angelic.

Which reminded him… 

_“It was a situation not unlike this one.”_

_“Bet he wasn’t your boss, though?” Crowley said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice now._

_Fell tilted his head to one side, remembering. “Actually, she was, at the time.”_

“She,” Crowley murmured to himself as he replayed the conversation in his head. Fell surely noticed that he’d been dying to know more. 

_“Well, wouldn’t you like to know?”_

What the hell kind of work did he do back then? Crowley could hardly imagine his boss submitting to anyone, let alone gladly consenting to have himself paddled by some woman. Some woman who apparently was _his boss._

The thought shouldn’t have been as disarming as it was. And his mind certainly shouldn’t have been running to fill in all the gaps in the story. 

It’s not like he was supposed to truly care about Fell’s background. This was not a romantic overture, after all; Fell wasn’t dating him. Why should he care about how the man tying him up learned his knots? And yet, the whole narrative had already been woven without any conscious effort, and had begun projecting itself:

_In his mind, it started with a lady, at a desk, adorned in an ermine fur coat. She had grown curious when a young man plodded into her office one day. It wasn’t that he didn’t seem the sort to seek out her services. She’d been in the business long enough to know there wasn’t a particular look to those seeking submission; she’d seen just about every type of man, woman, or anyone else come in wanting the same thing. It was simply the time of his arrival that shocked her. The afternoon sun was still shining through the blinds. A shame, since her office was much better suited to be glowing by the red neon lights of the Soho night._

_Not only that, but he had caught her in the middle of doing her books. She wasn’t wearing any leather, nor any makeup, and her shoes were practical. If it weren’t for the whips adorning the walls, you wouldn’t have been able to tell she was a dominatrix. That is, until she spoke, “What do you want, boy?” Her voice full with authority._

_At the first show of domination she usually could tell if a fruitful partnership would result. Did they go wide-eyed and tremble in terrible excitement, or did they shirk away as they realized this scene was very much not for them?_

_This man did neither. He blinked, interested but seemingly unaffected. As though he were mentally cataloging everything she did, rather than getting any titillation from it, “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, Ma’am--”_

_“Mistress,” she corrected him easily, “And you are?”_

_“A. Z. Fell,” he held out a hand, “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, er, Mistress.”_

_She shook his hand cautiously, giving him a once over. He seemed nice enough, if a bit uptight. Despite his youth, he wore clothes fitting of someone older and distinguished_ (because Crowley couldn’t imagine him in anything other than the outfits he saw him in each day, where the most casual he got was rolling his sleeves up). 

_“What brought you here today, A. Z. Fell?” She allowed herself to rise to her full height. Shorter than him, but still impressive._ Perhaps that was the first lesson: it was possible to tower over someone who was physically taller. Fell was certainly an expert in that.

_He cleared his throat, “Ahem, I was wondering if I might hire your services as a sort of… mentor. I’m afraid I’m quite new to all this, and I want to know everything. I thought it might be best to defer to an expert in these matters.”_

_“You want me to teach you?” she raised an eyebrow._

_“Yes. Teach me how to do what you do,” after a moment of bewildered silence, he added, “I can pay your usual rate, if that’s alright with you. Or we can discuss what you would charge for such a service--”_

_“No, usual fee is alright,” suddenly she was glad she was in her day clothes and not a leather ensemble. They would have to have a chat about all this, “Come and take a seat. Explain to me what you want.”_

_He sat, ignoring the squeak of the black leather upholstery, “I’ve tried to conduct what one might call independent research, but I have found the resources to be entirely lacking. That is why I thought a hands-on approach might be better,” he leaned forward in the chair excitedly, “I’m fascinated by the way discipline and sex are divorced in your profession.”_

_She nodded, understanding, “It’s not the case with everyone in this line of work but I, personally, never sleep with clients.”_

_A glimmer of excitement shone in his eyes, “Everywhere else I’ve searched, the two are inseparable, as though you cannot desire one without the other.”_

_She shrugged non committedly, “I’m proof that’s not the case.” Fell smiled, feeling seen for perhaps the first time in his life._

_After they had the talk about all the endless rules that came with this sort of hobby, she began to pace around her office with her hands clasped behind her back. Fell couldn’t keep his gaze off her. He was enraptured by the way she carried herself, the way she moved as she slipped deeper into the role she played nightly. Encircling him in a hypnotic, predatory manner. She came to a stop in front of him and his head was drawn up._

_Starting that moment, he was hers._

_Fell began to live a double-life: getting his masters in business by day, getting his education in domination by night. With each session, the Mistress taught him what it felt like to be on the receiving end of all the cruelty and comfort he so desired to give._

All the while, the song continued: _“Taste the whip, in love not given lightly.”_

God, what a sight he must have been the first time he got bent over her lap and spanked. Crowley bit his lip in a futile attempt to stop thinking of Fell in any role other than the dominant one. It felt like a sort of invasion of privacy to envision him begging for mercy, begging for more the way Crowley did for him. And yet, the little whimpers escaping a young Fell’s lips just wouldn’t leave his mind. In fact, they were getting him incredibly worked up, along with the imagery the song elicited with each drawling line. 

_“Taste the whip, now plead for me.”_

_“Please!” Fell cried out as the unrelenting paddle thwacked him again and again. And when tears were streaming down his face from the intensity of it all, reflecting what little light remained in the dim room, she pulled him into an embrace. Whispering as she ran a hand through his curls, “Good boy. You took that so well.” Maybe in his painful, blissed-out state he even kissed her (and not just on her boots of shiny, shiny leather)._

Crowley wondered if, in all that time, Fell had developed any Pavlovian reactions to the clicking of stiletto heels, the sight of corsets, or the feel of fishnet stockings. That might be something fun to test out. He was sure his Rocky Horror stuff was still packed away in a closet somewhere. 

Crowley shook his head. He couldn’t show up to the office in a garter belt and heels. What would he even do? Wear it under his work clothes? 

Actually… that sounded rather exciting. He banished the thought before he could get too caught up in the fantasy. File that away for another time. He still wanted to work out how Fell had gone from following the rules to making them. 

Fell wouldn’t have been just thrown into the role, he had to have been eased into it. His first taste of sadism would have been an act of submission on its own, under the Mistress’ watchful eye to make sure he never went too far. Driven by his craving to please the one above as well as the one below. 

_Maybe one day, Fell showed up to the brothel to find one of the Mistress’ clients tied up and pliant. He went wide-eyed and backed off to give the pair privacy, when a stern command stopped him, and a softer one beckoned him closer._

_The Mistress stroked her client’s back with her nails, eliciting a shiver from their naked body, “Tell him what you want, dear.”_

_“P-please. Punish me, sir.”_

He wouldn’t have been as in control as he was since Crowley’s known him. Shit, how flustered did he get the first time someone helplessly called him “sir?” Crowley squirmed in his seat, remembering the way Fell reacted to those words coming out of his own mouth. Imagining him becoming even more unseated, excited beyond belief at the prospect of someone relinquishing control over to him. Allowing him to take them apart with total faith that he would put them back together again when all was said and done. 

The song came to an end, and so did Crowley’s daydreams, leaving him incredibly aroused. He hadn’t intended for the research session to go this route. Though, maybe it was stupid of him to assume reading up on BDSM wouldn’t get him all hot and bothered. 

Although, it wasn’t any particular image on the screen that had excited him. He had scrolled past dozens of pictures of ropes digging into skin, collars, handcuffs, whips, chains, gags, and blindfolds without so much as a twitch. He found a lot of them aesthetically pleasing, of course (God knows how much time one has to dedicate to learn how to tie ropes that beautifully). But they were all faceless models, without any context. 

That was the most normal part of the whole day. Of the whole week, even. Crowley wasn’t naive; he had long suspected that his interest in Venus In Furs meant something deeper than an appreciation for sixties experimental rock. But every time he dabbled in porn of that variety, the results were evident: he was not turned on by BDSM. 

At least, not until he heard Fell’s voice giving him orders. Those results were pretty fucking evident too. All in all, Crowley was more confused than ever before.

At some point, he would have to ask about this “she,” whoever she was. Try to wriggle a bit more information out of Fell about how he got into this stuff. When did he first come across it? How did he know that it’s what he really wanted to do? Maybe his own feelings would make more sense if he knew Fell’s journey. It certainly wasn’t that he was insanely curious to know more about the reticent man.

Crowley also made a mental note to find those corsets and stuff. He definitely had them in the flat before his current one, but he hadn’t seen them in years. Maybe they’d gone into the bin during one of his cleaning frenzies. 

Ah -- that’s right, Anathema had kept them safe when he moved flats, safe from Crowley’s instinct to purge anything that distracted from his preference for a minimalist living space. He would just have to nonchalantly ask for the outfit back while dodging any prying questions and… 

… and a pang of guilt hit him right in the gut, dousing all his excitement in cold water. He had lied to Ana about this _thing_ and she didn’t deserve to be lied to. It’s just -- he knew she would freak out and think he’s falling into his old patterns. Made all the worse with kink added into the mix. How could he explain to her how the power dynamics with Fell were the furthest thing from all his previous experiences, when on the surface they seemed so similar?

Truth is, being tied up and spanked by Fell made him feel so much better than all the vanilla transactional sexual favours in the world. And he’d had a lot of those. Starting all the way back at art school. 

He supposed he had a mentor of his own back then, one that taught him the way the world works. Taught Crowley that he could and _should_ use his tongue for more than sarcastic quips. The way Anathema reacted stuck out so strongly in his memory that he couldn’t help but mentally project the scene. _Let’s do the time warp again:_

_In a room with a little too many crystals and potted plants, with the radio blaring a little too loud, and after a little too many drinks, Anathema and Crowley put their feet up one evening. They flopped down on the couch in their cramped university apartment, laughing until they forgot what they had found so funny._

_“Oh I’m so glad he finally realized what an amazing artist you are,” Ana had drunkenly slouched on Crowley, “I told you, all it takes is to get in their faces! You Brits and your social niceties-- they’ll be the death of you.”_

_“Do you really want this whole bloody country to start acting like Americans?”_

_She laughed into his shoulder, “Oh God, no.”_

_“I could go out and buy a gun and start greeting you with a ‘yeehaw.’ Is that what you really want?”_

_“Please don’t!”_

_“God bless the US of A,” Crowley said in an atrocious accent, “I’m American and I say cookies instead of biscuits.”_

_“I know you hate that as much as I do!”_

_“S’worth it, though,” he gave her a nudge, “Just to annoy you.”_

_“Well,” she began to speak in a way that combined posh and chav accents, forming a dialect nobody actually spoke, “I’m English and I say shhhchedule.”_

_“I don’t say it like that and you know it.”_

_“Nah, I heard you when you spoke to the professor, ‘I shall have to check with my shhhchedule.’ You said it exactly like that.”_

_“I didn’t fucking say ‘shall!’”_

_“Ummm, I’m pretty sure you did, Tony. I heard it.”_

_“You’re drunk.”_

_“I wasn’t drunk this morning.”_

_“Well you need to get your hearing checked, then,” he took a big gulp of the cocktail concoction Ana made for the celebration. She followed suit._

_“Waitwaitwait, what did he say about your portfolio? You still haven’t told me anything about that,” she jabbed him in the arm, “Tell me all the compliments he showered on your art. This is not the time to be humble.”_

_“Erm…” Crowley rubbed his face, “We didn’t talk much about it, actually.”_

_She shot him a curious look, “You did have him take another look at it, didn’t you? Like I suggested?”_

_“Yeah, course. But I don’t think he was too interested in it, t’be honest.”_

_“But he agreed to give you one-on-one lessons. How did he… without…”_

_“I shoulda thought of sucking off the professors sooner,” he brought his drink to his lips before adding, “Who knew that it’s so much easier to climb the ladder when you’re on your knees, you know?”_

_He looked over at Anathema when she didn’t respond and nudged her with his elbow. Instead of retorting with something like their typical banter, she stayed gape-mouthed and silent, the colour drained from her face. He frowned, “What?”_

_A bit breathlessly, she said, “Did I hear you right? You… you blew him? Like, actually?”_

_“Alright, shut up,” he rolled his eyes, “Just say I’ve got no shame and let’s move on.”_

_“That's not what I was going to say.”_

_“Yeah, right.”_

_“No, really,” she shook her head in disbelief, “Tony, what happened in his office?”_

_“Ngh, nothing_ happened--”

_With renewed passion and anger, she interrupted him, “He said that if you gave him a blowjob, he’d mentor you. Is that right? Have I got that right?”_

_Crowley shrugged, “That just about sums it up.”_

_“Anthony. That’s a total abuse of his power,” she set her glass down and tried to take his hand, which he quickly pulled away._

_“No it wasn’t. It’s not like… I mean, I didn’t say no--”_

_“Did you feel you_ could _say no? Your whole career’s on the line and that asshole took advantage--”_

_“You’re making a big deal out of nothing. He’s got what he wants, and I’ve got what I want. Perfectly happy, me.”_

_“Are you?”_

_“Yup,” he said, though Crowley didn’t quite believe it himself. And one look at Anathema told him that she was completely unconvinced._

_“I thought you seemed a bit off, and now it all makes sense. I-- I think you should report him.”_

_“Report him--?”_

_“Yes. I mean it,” she looked at him with more pity than he could bear, “I could go with you if you like.”_

_“No. No way.”_

_“Why not?”_

_“It’s not… I mean,” Crowley grit his teeth, “Well, I can’t because then I’d be back to square one. Mentorless._ And then _how much shit would he talk about me? Who’d want to mentor me then, huh?”_

_“Someone else!” she shouted, “Your art is good. Someone out there is sure to want you.”_

_He couldn’t help but feel as though all her anger was pointed straight at him, she was practically arguing right in his ear. He snapped, “S’easy for you to say, little-miss-trust-fund. You don’t have to worry about anything like that.”_

_“Anthony--”_

_“Never work a day in your life and the professors all love you. Just say your last name and they’re clambering over each other to get to you--”_

_“I’m not joking about this!”_

_“Well, me neither!”_

_They sat in silence for a moment, each one feeling more hurt than they would ever admit._

_“We got too drunk,” Anathema said._

_“Agreed.”_

_“Revisit this… sober, kay?”_

_“Sure thing,” he tilted his head back to down the last of his cocktail, “Will do.”_

Of course, nothing ever came of that. Nothing more than some shame and a whole ton of regret. It was the nineties -- no one cared about things like that back then. Hell, it’s arguable as to whether people care about it now. 

Eventually he learned to stop telling Anathema about all his sleeping around school and work. At least, until each time things fell through, he got hurt, and she found him seeking comfort from the bottom of a bottle. 

Crowley grimaced to himself at the memory of that first experience. The emptiness he felt every time he walked out of a one-on-one meeting with him and all the cold touches that didn’t mean anything more than career advancement. Yeah, and how well did his art career go after that? He’d been utterly broke before he started selling his soul to corporations -- the same story every wannabe artist had. 

Figuring he’d had enough research for one night, he shut his laptop. He did the rounds, watering all the houseplants and tidying up his lonely flat. With nothing else planned for the night, he changed out of his clothes. Crowley made sure to take a peek at the marks he was proud to have before he pulled on his pyjama pants. 

It was a little scary how much he had grown to crave his daily meetings with Fell. He truly seemed different from the others, but was he? It wouldn’t be the first time he had insisted up and down, _they’re different, I swear,_ only for things to end up exactly the same.

Only time would tell whether Fell reciprocated the feeling, or whether he would throw Crowley out when he got everything he needed from him.

**Author's Note:**

> (p.s. I just made a [tumblr](https://itsowenjones.tumblr.com))


End file.
